Kudankulam plant to have novel safety features

The NPCIL has given a written assurance to the Supreme Court that the Kudankulam plant is “absolutely safe” and fully equipped to deal even with Fukushima type of accident. Source: AFP

Indian Government files counter-affidavit in India’s Supreme Court praising safety features being implemented by GosAtomNadzor.

The Russian-built Kudankulam Nuclear Power
Project (KNPP) received a shot in the arms in the legal battle over safety
aspects. The Indian Government has placed on record its appreciation for the
Russian Nuclear Safety Authority, also known as GosAtomNadzor (GAN) with the
Supreme Court.

The Nuclear Power Corporation of India
Limited (NPCIL), which owns and runs all nuclear power plants in India,
including KNPP, filed a 20-page counter affidavit in the Supreme Court on
Thursday. The affidavit filed by Ashok Chauhan, NPCIL’s Executive Director
(Fuel Cycle Management and Safety Safeguards), has said that GAN had reviewed
and cleared the Safety Analysis Report of KNPP units 1 and 2, which forms the
basis of licensing safety review.

The NPCIL told the court that the
Kudankulam Project has a unique passive safety feature which provides cooling
to the nuclear fuel without the need for operator action or power supply. This
mechanism is known as Passive Heat Removal System. To decode it for the common
man, this system consists of a series of air coolers rather than motor car
radiators which are installed at a greater height outside the secondary reactor
building in an annular arrangement.

This feature was not originally there in
the original design. The Indian safety authorities insisted on this feature to
be incorporated in the design and the Russians obliged. With the help of the
Russians, the KNPP has become the first nuclear plant in India to adopt this
novel safety feature, according to the NPCIL.

The NPCIL has assured India’s apex court
that the Kudankulam plant is not vulnerable to terrorist attacks or sabotage.
“It has elaborate physical security arrangements in place to ensure its
security. The structural design of the facilities at KNPP ensures that in the
event of a physical attack, the structure would prevent the release of any
radioactivity into the public domain,” it said. KNPP incorporates various
systems that are in place to detect acts of sabotage. Besides, in case of
nuclear reactors, even in the remote likelihood of the security being breached,
the reactor would go on the safe automatic shutdown mode.

The
NPCIL has given a written assurance to the Supreme Court that the Kudankulam
plant is “absolutely safe” and fully equipped to deal even with Fukushima type
of accident. This is despite the fact that only seven of the 17 recommendations
by the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB), made by an expert committee set
up in the wake of leakage of radioactive materials from a damaged nuclear plant
in Fukushima in Japan after a tsunami in March 2011, had been implemented by the
government thus far. “Even if a Fukushima type of incident were to occur, the
KNPP is fully equipped with all safety measures to withstand any such unlikely
event,” the NPCIL has said.

The remaining ten recommendations would be
put in place within the time frame allowed by the AERB. The NPCIL listed out
some major nuclear disasters in the world and claimed thus: “Despite these
accidents, the safety records of nuclear power plants, in terms of lives lost
per unit of electricity delivered, is better than every other major source of
power in the world.”

Fortunately for KNPP an illustrious person
like eminent scientist and former Indian President APJ Abdul Kalam has batted
on behalf of the project. Kalam and another expert V. Ponrajhad visited the
KNPP site and reviewed the safety standards. They went on record as saying that
the KNPP is situated 1500 kilometres away from the epicentre, the plant site
was thus safe and there was “absolutely no possibility for any danger”. Kalam’s
quotable quote on Kudankulam project is as follows: “This project is of God for
fulfilling the electricity production and need of this country, which is fifty
thousand MW in 2030. The KNPP is a necessary project.”

This may sound a tad technical but
narration of few technical details is necessary to convey the extent of
technical help and expertise that the Russians have been giving to the Indians
for the Kudankulam project.

A
nuclear power plant is drastically different from a thermal plant. The
technology is much different and superior. The biggest challenge for the
scientists is first to insulate the plant from radioactive leaks, accidents,
sabotage and terror attacks. The difference between a thermal plant and a
nuclear plant is that the nuclear fuel needs cooling even after the chain reaction
has stopped because of the decay of the products formed during nuclear chain
reaction.

This
imposes some specific requirements like decay heat removal in nuclear power
plant to take care of the decay heat. Even after the plant is in shutdown condition
there are many safety systems incorporated in the KNPP which include control
rod containing materials which absorb neutrons to stop the chain reaction
(called poisons) and other poisons which are injected in the coolant boric
acid.

The
various safety systems which are involved are primarily associated with three
requirements: (i) shutting down of the plant; (ii) removal of decay heat; and
(iii) mitigation of any release of radioactivity. The Russians have been
pro-actively helping the Indians at every stage. This is the crux of what the
NPCIL has submitted before the Supreme Court. The next hearing is scheduled for
October 4.

The writer is a New Delhi-based journalist-author and
a strategic analyst.